Main menu

Post navigation

Believe it or not, there was a time where I wanted to hide in the shadows, to blend in with my surroundings so completely that anyone passing me by would notice me like they would notice this pretty bird beside these fat cats:

Hoo me?

Unfortunately I failed at blending in. I failed so hard that, upon my graduation year, I was elected Who’s Most Likely to Host Electric Circus. Little did those classmates know, I hated Electric Circus. I was all about 106 & Park.

Every weekday after school was spent with AJ and Free.

A few things my younger self wouldn’t compromise for anonymity:

Hanging out with pretty girls. Better yet, hanging out with pretty girls that wouldn’t put out for assholes and threw bitches against lockers for getting in their personal space. Sally, are you still this hot-blooded?!

Fashion. If you truly want to blend in, wear beige, don’t wear red like a dancing matador and jeans with slits cut up the sides that flap and crack, echoing down the hallway. You could seriously hear me coming from a mile away.

Walking down the middle of the hallway. I didn’t retaliate by screaming, fighting or crying; I retaliated by refusing to slink around the perimeter like I was carrying the supposed corpse of someone very popular, perhaps royal, and trying to find a place to dump him.

I should have hit-them-all-on-the-he-ad.

Being athletic. I definitely wasn’t sporty, but I was fit and forced to take gym class with the physically elite because I refused to fake my prowess in physical testing for gym class placement.

Taking the ball away from a jock in a game of ball hockey. A sliced and bleeding leg with a teacher pretending not to notice the retaliation is better than complacent sportsmanship. PS. Grand River Collegiate Institute, zero tolerance, my asshole. You tolerated all of the assholes.

Have you ever wondered if those high school characters you had to endure for five years of your life ever grew up? I took the Clueless Character Quiz and somehow ended up being Christian Stovitz, Cher’s gay love interest. Even the 90s new I was gay. My friend Naomi is also Christian. She doesn’t understand how we’re both Christian…

Here is a list of those 90s high school characters we all loved or loved to hate, then and now:

This past Oktoberfest I bumped into a dude that wasn’t necessarily the ringleader of the high school jerk-offs, but wasn’t completely innocent either. I used to think he was super hot back in the day and, to his credit, he has aged quite well. Anyway, I digress, this fellow proceeds to track me down and insist that he buy Tales and I a drink. At first I declined, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I’m sorry I pooped on your life.

It was if the drinks were an apology for wrongs done to me 15 years ago. I accepted. It was a long time ago and people do change, right?

And then I remembered witnessing an interesting scene in the subway. Some miscreant had a trollop bent over a railing and was smacking her on the ass, causing quite the scene. He happened to be the legit ringleader, the bane of my high school existence. He was definitely not blending in. Ironically, years later, I ended up giving him a wide berth as I did not want to interrupt his public display of adolescent misogyny. Well, I guess some people climb outside of their high school experience and become gentlemen – others are exactly as I remember them.